


Hell is Ours to Carry

by wynnebat



Series: Hell is Other People [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Dimension Travel, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter, Psychological Trauma, Summoned Hero, threats of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-31 05:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12674922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: The ritual brings the Order a light wizard who’d already sacrificed all he had to the cause. When asked again, Harry can’t bring himself to make the same choice.





	Hell is Ours to Carry

**Author's Note:**

> Blanket warning for mental health issues, plus the above tags. Harry committed suicide before the story begins.

The first thing Harry felt upon opening his eyes was disappointment. The skies were bright and blue above him, the sun low enough that Harry assumed it was sometime past midday. Not much time had passed at all, but he didn't remember how exactly he'd come to be outside. Last thing he remembered was lying on a couch in Grimmauld Place and picking up the Elder Wand. It had been the first time he'd used it since fixing his holly wand, though the wand had still stubbornly followed him into the pockets of every robe he'd ever worn. Drunkenly, Harry had reasoned with himself that he didn't want to force his favored want to use an Unforgivable. It looked like all he'd gotten out of the experience was getting drunk enough that he didn't remember going outside.

At least he'd gotten drunk enough that he could still feel the warmth of firewhiskey in his chest no matter how many hours he'd been passed out. It felt good, much better than usual. Maybe Harry had accidentally bought a better brand than his usual swill.

It felt like he'd missed a whole day, but Harry couldn't be sure, and in all honesty he couldn't bring himself to give much of a shit. The only thing he had to show up for on time was Sunday brunch at the Burrow and that had been yesterday. Or the day before. Three days at most.

 _At least I'm not naked,_ Harry thought as he rolled his shoulders and sat up, his hands digging into the wet ground. He could almost see Skeeter's gleefully vicious headlines. The Elder Wand sat on his chest, warm to the touch. There was a suspicious amount of contentedness emanating from it.

"You're still not my main wand," Harry said to it, poking at the thing. "I'll find my holly one no matter where you've managed to banish it this time."

A throat cleared from somewhere near him. Too close, really, so Harry decided he might as well pay some attention to his surroundings. He was sitting at the center of Stonehenge for some reason. His robes smelled like a bar exploded onto him. And of course, Albus Dumbledore and other miscellaneous dead people were staring at him from just outside the stone structures. Harry wanted to blame the wand, but Albus could give anything a run for its money when it came to manipulation. This whole situation reeked of it.

"I'm not nearly drunk enough for this," Harry told the group. Even if, oddly enough, he didn't feel as drunk as he should be, given the warmth of the firewhiskey he could feel coursing through his veins, the heat centered in his chest. "Albus, tell me this is just a really weird afterlife greeting party."

"You're very much alive, traveler," Albus said, his face gaining a little warmth. Harry had never had this expression of Albus' directed at him: forced calm and weariness in each wrinkle of his aged face. He was old, and yet he looked younger than Harry had ever known him. "May we enter?"

Harry furrowed his brow, but then he noticed a shimmer of a barrier around himself, stretching up to the stones themselves. To his wand, the most likely culprit, he said, "Thanks," and to the others he just waved a hand to welcome them in as the barrier vanished. Because the universe utterly despised him, his dead parents, dead godfather, and dead hated professor followed Albus inside.

Albus came to a step across from Harry and sat down onto the ground, legs crossed under his robes. "I don't believe I've sat on the ground in decades. Really, I have become a very unadventurous sort of old man, the kind I remember promising myself I'd never become."

A small part of Harry wanted to laugh, but his lungs couldn't seem to remember how to do it. Instead, he tapped a finger against the ground, heating the uppermost layer all around him. "Better for your joints than the cold," Harry said, watching the others sigh at Albus but follow him onto the ground.

"My old bones thank you," Albus said, his eyes twinkling just a little.

Harry forced himself to ignore how much the sight of life in Albus' eyes made him want to tear up. The man had been dead for nearly a decade. Harry had dealt with his complicated grief for his former headmaster, but seeing him now was bringing up old memories.

"I'm glad," Harry said, and it was a truth, but it was part of a greater whole. "Now tell me what I'm doing here. I watched you die, Albus. I've mourned every one of you people—" Harry's eyes flickered to each figure sitting around Albus "—and I've put my ghosts to rest. Well, concerning you lot, anyway."

"You're our boy," James said, his voice shaken. "Harry."

"Not yours, I think, not really," Harry replied. Not in any photo had Harry seen James and Lily look as old as Sirius and Severus, but still so young. "This is a different world?"

"A different dimension," Lily spoke. Her hands twitched as though she wanted to reach out to him, but she held them close. "Hello, Harry. I haven't seen you in thirteen years."

"I'm a bit older than you last saw me," Harry said, trying for a smile. It probably failed, but Lily's smile was wobbly, too. He turned to Albus and waited, staring into the man's blue eyes.

"We called upon an ancient power to bring a hero who has defeated Voldemort to our world," Albus said, plainly.

"I think that's the most straight you've ever been with me," Harry replied, feeling amused despite himself. "Even when I was needed to kill my own Voldemort, you spent years beating around the bush. You were even vague and manipulative after your death, which is a real accomplishment."

"You would be," Severus huffed, turning his eyes away from Harry for just a moment to shoot Albus a look. "And I suppose you have a grudge against him now?"

"Trying to gauge my willingness to do your dirty work?" Harry drawled, feeling much more at ease with Severus to snipe at. The man's portrait was really a delight.

"Yes," Severus replied, raising an eyebrow at Harry. "You seem to have some fondness for the alternate versions of some of us, but it's better to know now if there are going to be issues with working with you."

Harry took a last look at all of them, because it was the last time he was going to see that hope on their faces. With a shrug, he said, "We won't have any issues, but only because I won't be working with you. Send me back."

"My boy—"

"Albus, I've done my duty in my own world," Harry cut in with a dark look. "I gave up more than I can even begin to tell you to stop Voldemort. I won't be a pawn in a war that's not even my own."

"You'd be a queen, I think," Sirius said, dodging an elbow to his ribs. "Seriously, we need you, but we'd never use you. I don't know what our alternate selves are to you, but we're the Order of the Phoenix. We're not the bad guys here."

Harry ignored him, because having this Sirius be alive enough to speak to him was too damn much. "Albus."

Any humor that had been in Albus' expression had vanished. "I am so sorry, Mr. Potter, but the portal has closed behind you and the magic we'd called upon has vanished from this world. It was unintended and unexpected, and I promise you, we had intended to return you through the portal should you not wish to help us, no matter how dire our circumstances have become."

"Of course," Harry said, feeling so fucking tired once again. "If something can possibly go wrong around me, it will. But I think this time the blame isn't entirely on you. I died in my own world before waking up in this one. I was on my way to the next great adventure before I woke up here."

"No one has ever quoted an alternate version of myself to me before," Albus said, sounding just a little charmed. "I said that here as well. Are you quite sure you died?"

"It was the Killing Curse," Harry said, shrugging. "I could feel it hit me. There's next to no chance that I lived through it."

"And instead of the embrace of death, we've brought you here to suffer more death through your life. I'm sorry, my boy." And the thing was, Albus did look sorry. He always did. It was just that instead of laying off when he felt guilty, the man would always push. "Will you stay with us while we try to find a solution?"

"So that you can convince me to fight?"

"So that we can make amends," Albus told him solemnly. "But I won't hide behind altruism. We need you, Mr. Potter, and I don't believe you're as against this as you appear. Everything that made you fight against the Voldemort in your world exists here. The reasons, the morals… Even some of the people from your own world, I imagine."

"You're not completely wrong," Harry allowed. Just looking at his parents made him want to pull out a wand against anyone who might try to kill them. Harry had always been protective of the people he loved and it was as though this world was bringing out all the feelings that he'd drowned out with firewhiskey years ago.

Actually—

Oh.

Maybe he really was drunker than he thought, if the realization had come in so late, but it wasn't the warmth of firewhiskey in his chest. Closing his eyes, Harry followed the strands of light that were intricately woven inside him down to his magical core. It burned so brightly inside him, without the cloud of darkness that he'd had to bear after he'd ripped the other half of his soul from his world. For the first time in nearly a decade, Harry actually felt whole. He didn't know what to do with the knowledge. It felt like the moments before drowning, when his chest was doing its best to just breathe in the last bit of air he was going to get.

Even with the love he felt for his parents… Could he actually do all of this again? Could he kill his soulmate with the full knowledge of how empty he was going to feel afterward? Could he deal with another set of people who'd become deeply distrustful of him once it got out that his soulmate was the very same man they were trying to destroy? Harry had already done all of this once. He'd already paid the price of losing his soulmate.

He couldn't leave. He could run, but as soon as word got out that the Order had summoned someone who in no uncertain terms had the power to kill the Dark Lord, Voldemort wouldn't stop until one of them was dead. No amount of reasoning had ever worked with his own Voldemort, as insane as he had been. Harry rubbed at his forehead. For the first time so long, he felt alive, but he was more trapped than ever.

Maybe this time, killing himself would actually work, but with his luck he'd just wake up again in whatever place the Elder Wand decided to stick him. Rubbing at his forehead, he realized that this wasn't a thoughtless action. The Elder Wand had a vested interest in his existence—it had protected the master of all three hallows time and again—but it had chosen to kill him and place him here. Here, where his soulmate and parents existed.

"I just realized… My soulmate is alive in your world," Harry said once he opened his eyes, the words coming out quieter than he'd meant them to. He tugged popped the top two buttons of his robes and tugged down on the collar of his shirt, revealing the top of his soulmark. It was bright with color again, the tiger lilies beautiful as they stretched out in an infinity symbol that ran from one collarbone to the other. "It looks like your son's bond was able to transfer to me."

"It's the same mark our Harry was born with," Lily confirmed. "But…"

Lily wasn't able to continue the question that had arisen in her mind, but clearly Severus had no problem. "The Killing Curse that hit you was from your own wand, was it not? You were suffering from the loss of your soulmate."

Harry nodded slightly. "He died in the war," he said, figuring he might as well keep his options open. It would get out, but maybe not now. "Our bond… It was strong. Stronger than any that Albus had measured before. I managed eight years after his death, but it wasn't any kind of life. It was just waking up and going to bed and trying to drink away the time in between. Last night I'd finally had enough."

At that, Lily finally did allow herself to reach out, hugging him tightly. "I'm so sorry, baby."

Harry swallowed, clutching her close until he couldn't take it anymore. His soulmate hadn't been a nice light wizard that Lily and James could cry over with him. He didn't deserve their sympathy. Not because of who his soulmate was, because Harry couldn't control that, but because Harry knew deep down that he wasn't going to be strong enough to give fate the finger a second time. He'd had nearly a decade to live with his pain. He wasn't enough of a masochist to go back to the emptiness that had haunted every single one of his days.

It couldn't have even been an hour since he'd arrived in this would, but Harry could feel the bond tug at him as his other half neared. The ground around Stonehenge was ancient and sacred, and Voldemort would have to walk on foot to get close. But his Voldemort would have to survive the indignity of not being to swoop in like a proper Dark Lord. Harry could feel the dark aura of Voldemort's magic gain ground, but it wasn't until a couple minutes passed that Albus felt him too.

Albus' head whipped to the direction that Voldemort was arriving from. "It's him."

"How could he possibly know where we are?" James hissed quietly, jumping to his feat and carefully looking out from behind the nearest boulder to Voldemort's direction.

"Maybe he set up the taboo again," Sirius offered, going to James' side.

"He hasn't mentioned any plans for doing so." Severus looked between them. "I need to leave. He'll know that any ritual done here would have had to be planned for weeks and that I've kept it hidden from—"

"Have you?" Sirius asked, shooting him a glare. "It's suspicious that as soon as someone with the power to defeat him arrives, Voldemort just shows up right away."

"Stop," Albus said, raising his palm at the two of them. "James, you're fully aware that Severus has my trust. Severus…"

"He'll already know you're here," Harry said. He was the only one that had stayed sitting on the ground. "If he's as good as the one in my own world."

"Mr. Potter is likely correct," Albus replied. "You will have to—"

But whatever Severus would have to do was lost to Harry as Voldemort finally appeared in his vision. From his spot at the center of the structure, he could see him easily between the gaps of the stones. To Harry's surprise, Voldemort didn't look snakelike at all, not like Harry's had after his resurrection. But Harry didn't know what had happened in this universe. Maybe his other self's death hadn't even put a stop to the war in this universe. He should've asked more questions when he had the chance, but that time had passed.

Merlin, Harry had forgotten how it had felt, being able to see his soulmate. The bond thrummed between them, powerful but steady, and Harry felt warm down to his very toes. He hadn't seen Voldemort much in person during the war. The longest time he'd been around Voldemort was when he'd been possessing Quirrell, but their bond had been barely active while Voldemort had been a wraith. It had bloomed to life on the night of Voldemort's resurrection and Harry had fought with everything he had to avoid being forced to stay with the man any longer. Voldemort hadn't wanted him, not truly—there had been nothing but insanity behind those red eyes of his. He'd wanted Harry locked away in a tower guarded by more than just a dragon. The thought still made him feel sick. It had always been so hard to reconcile how good and pure their bond always felt to the fact that the man on the other end barely thought of him as anything more than an object. And yet, killing that man had been the worst moment of Harry's life.

The others were preparing shielding charms and going over battle strategies since escaping from the area through apparition was impossible. Everyone but Harry and Albus was frantic. Albus watched Harry as Harry watched Voldemort. Harry wondered what he saw. Pain, probably. Tiredness. A lonely, self-pitying, _I chose to die, I didn't choose this_.

Voldemort stopped a few meters away from the stones, but his voice carried through the distance easily. "I killed you."

Red eyes met green. Harry knew Voldemort would be on guard against the others, especially Albus, but the majority of his attention rested on Harry. It always did.

Harry picked himself up off the ground and began to walk.

"Wait, stay behind the cover of the stones," James called, but Harry ignored him. He stepped out of Stonehenge and onto the field around it, stopping before he came too close to Voldemort.

"I killed you, too," Harry agreed, a bubble of hysterical laughter rising in his throat.

Voldemort's brow twitched as he looked Harry over. "How can you possibly be alive?"

"I was summoned from an alternate dimension," Harry replied, feeling no need to lie. He'd never lied to his soulmate in his life. He hadn't needed to, not really, not with the way they'd always been so clear about their positions. The Chosen One and the Dark Lord. And now they met again. "In order to kill you."

Voldemort's wand was out, but he didn't raise it at Harry. Even at Harry's words, he didn't look murderous. He just looked calculating, but Harry could deal with calculating. He tried to shove the stubborn hope back where it belonged, but it flowed through his chest and through the bond. There was want in Voldemort's eyes, but it didn't hold an edge of ugly greed.

"And yet their hero is hesitating," Voldemort said, his words smooth, not a hiss in sight. "Where is your wand, Harry?"

"In my back pocket," Harry admitted. "I'm not intending to use it. You're right. I killed you once and it was the worst experience of my life." He glanced back, unable to help himself, and saw the others gathered behind him, far enough to easily take cover behind the stones but close enough to hear. There was a range of expressions on their faces. Anger, sadness, disgust, but it was Lily's pity that shook him the most. "I don't know much about you in this world, but the Voldemort I knew had gone insane long before I was born. I don't doubt that you are the same men at your cores, but you don't seem quite as crazy to me."

"I'm sure Dumbledore would say otherwise, but I'm not a madman," Voldemort promised. It was alluring, that promise, and it had more of a sway on Harry than any promises of his own Voldemort. "I gave into desperation and insanity only once in my life and I've had to live with the result for thirteen years."

"Most of those spent as a wraith?" Harry asked.

"Until two months ago," Voldemort agreed. "It was far easier to live as a wraith."

"I know," Harry said. It felt painful just to think of the years he'd spent with the emptiness in his chest, even now when he finally felt alive. "I found my way out in the end."

Voldemort reached the correct conclusion, not that Harry had been trying to hide it. He stalked forward, gripping Harry by the shoulders. "You wouldn't dare do it again."

"I will if you try to put me in a golden cage," Harry promised. "Because I've been able to get out of every cage anyone's ever put me in. Even the cage that's our bond. Maybe I'll actually make it to the afterlife next time."

"You would deprive me? Leave me to suffer your absence after an hour of our rightful bond back in place? I would go mad. Losing you once was already worse than I could have ever prepared myself for. With you gone again, I would burn your Order to the ground, bathe in the blood of your family."

"They're not my Order and they're not my family." Sorry, Harry thought, because he knew it would take mere days for him to love them. "But now that we've established that I'm more likely than not to leave, you do have a choice here."

"And what exactly is this choice you're giving me?"

"Make me an offer," Harry said, swallowing. "Take my wants into account. Be the man I think you might be capable of being."

"You have my word. I know better than to deny the fates—I've learned better. Come with me, Harry, and I'll make you an offer you will gladly accept." Voldemort's hands hadn't left his shoulders, but his grip had softened, his hands possessive instead of desperate. His handsome face didn't bear signs of soft feelings, but there was determination in his gaze, and there was acceptance of the fact that he would have to do this on Harry's terms. This Voldemort really did seem more human than Harry's Voldemort could have ever dreamed of. Harry wondered if it had been grief that had forced this Voldemort to become more man than monster. Grief at by Voldemort's own hand, but powerful all the same.

Harry took one last look at his parents and godfather. "It was nice, to think of the future I could've had with you if I stayed. I'm sorry."

In the end, Harry was just a man, one with both the power to defeat Voldemort and Voldemort's mark in two places on his body. Somehow, he'd have to find a way to live with himself now that he was choosing those marks instead of his other destiny. He looked into his soulmate's red eyes, the only feature this man had in common with his own Voldemort, and he let himself be led astray.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm also on tumblr as @[crownwithoutstones](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/).


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